Puzzle Mania with NYT's Mini Creator

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Puzzle Mania with NYT's Mini Creator"

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Joel Fagliano, New York Times Puzzle Editor & Mini Crossword Creator
Date: October 21, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, "Puzzle Mania," host Alison Stewart speaks with Joel Fagliano, the creator of the New York Times Mini Crossword and editor of the new book, Puzzlemania. The conversation delves into the cultural significance of puzzles, the science and art behind creating them, and the impact of NYT's growing suite of games. Listeners take part in a live puzzle game, exploring the quirky and beloved language of crossword puzzles—known to aficionados as "crosswordese." The episode celebrates the timeless pleasure of puzzles and examines their evolving role in our daily lives and in contemporary digital culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Allure of Puzzles and the Language of Crosswordese

• Family Traditions & Early Influence

  • Joel describes growing up in a word-loving family that played games like Scrabble and Boggle, fostering his early love of puzzles (02:41).
  • Quote: "You just, you pick up words over time coming from a word loving family." (03:00, Joel)

• Crosswordese as Insiders’ Club

  • Discussion of words like “Ono,” “Eno,” and “nene” that recur in crosswords, creating a shared language among solvers.
  • Quote: "It makes it sort of this exclusive club... it feels really good to know Elvis Presley's middle name is Aaron. A-R-O-N. Is that useful knowledge in the rest of your life? No, not really." (03:46, Joel)

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2. Puzzles & Cognition: The Brain Science Angle

• Alison shares her experience using puzzles in speech therapy after a brain injury (04:28), prompting a discussion of puzzles’ cognitive benefits.
• Joel notes while he isn’t a neuroscientist, puzzles are used in dementia therapy to stimulate recall and make new connections in the brain (04:49).
  • Quote: "[P]uzzles are a way of testing your recall of things, you know, and also of ... exploring new avenues in the brain, making new connections, new synapses." (05:00, Joel)

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3. Live On-Air Crosswordese Game (05:27 – 13:35)

Listeners call in to solve crossword clues featuring classic crosswordese.

• Notable clues and answers:

  • "Cookie in the shape of its first and last letters" — Oreo (06:08, Joel)
  • "Sea predator that can grow to roughly the size of a school bus" — Orca (07:56, Joel)
  • "Berry whose name is 3/4 vowels" — Acai (08:21, Joel)
  • "Bird able to run faster than the fastest human, 3 letters" — Emu (09:07, Alison)
  • "Olympics event with two accents in its name" — Epee (12:08, Joel)
  • "Musician Brian, who composed Windows 95 startup music" — Eno (12:28, Joel)
  • "Reputation or Red for Taylor Swift (three letters, most-used crossword answer)" — Era (13:32, Joel)

• Alison and Joel banter about public radio’s puzzle-loving audience and the inevitability of certain “crosswordese” words (08:25, Alison; 12:45, Joel).

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4. Engineering the Aha! Moment

• Joel discusses puzzle construction, emphasizing empathy for the solver and the importance of fairness. He notes that questions with a “?” usually signal a pun or trick (06:51, Joel).
  • Quote: "If you’re solving a crossword and you see a clue with a question mark at the end of it, it’s going to be a bad pun... There is a pun incoming." (07:14, Joel)

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5. The Art of the Mini Crossword

• The Mini was created to be more accessible, eliminating obscure “crosswordese” in favor of common vocabulary and clever clues.
  • Quote: "My goal with the mini crossword is to broaden the audience ... to not include words that you only know if you do a bunch of puzzles." (09:27, Joel)
  • Joel notes he has crafted the Mini daily since 2014—over 3,500 puzzles (16:40).

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6. Inside Puzzle-Making: Jargon and Process

• Puzzle-makers use insider terms like “the grid” (diagram) and “fill” (words crossing through the grid). They also worry about “fair corners”—ensuring that sections don’t become unsolvable through the pileup of tricky words or trivia (11:04, Joel).

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7. The Evolution & Renaissance of NYT Games

• Joel discusses the broadening of the NYT puzzles’ audience, especially through newer digital games like Wordle and Connections (14:45).

• The new book, Puzzlemania, celebrates both classic NYT puzzles (e.g., acrostics) and newer games, adapting them for print with creative twists (16:02, Joel).

  • Quote: "What this book was ... you can open it and just start playing ... there are lots of visual puzzles. There’s trivia. There are pieces on the different puzzle makers who make up the New York Times team." (16:02, Joel)

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8. Adapting Digital Games to Print

• Joel explains how interactive games like Wordle and Connections are translated into book format with modified gameplay ("Wordle in One," meta-puzzles, etc.) (17:21).

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9. The Difficulty—and Joy—of Connections

• Joel attributes Connections’ reputed challenge to its creator’s unique style and creativity:
  • Quote: "She's just a brilliantly creative person ... the wavelength that she’s operating [on] is not the wavelength that other people are operating on." (18:25, Joel)
• Ultimately, the goal is to be “hard, but delightfully solvable.” (18:54, Joel)

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10. Puzzles as Reprieve in Everyday Life

• Joel shares that puzzles provide him with a “reprieve” and a way to either start or close his day, sometimes using Spelling Bee as a mental warm-up (19:15).
  • Quote: "To me, puzzle solving time is kind of this sacred break." (19:15, Joel)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Crosswordese:
  • "...it makes it sort of this exclusive club that it feels really good to be a part of." (03:46, Joel)
• On Puzzle Empathy:
  • "You really try not to make a puzzle just for you ... you have to put yourself in the shoes of the solver." (06:53, Joel)
• On the Role of Puzzles:
  • "...puzzle solving time is kind of this sacred break." (19:15, Joel)
• On Mini Crosswords Popularity:
  • "I've made the mini crossword for the New York Times since 2014 every day. That's like over 3,500 minis." (16:40, Joel)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Setup: 00:07 – 02:33
• Early Puzzle Influences: 02:34 – 03:46
• Crosswordese & Community: 03:46 – 05:27
• Puzzles and Brain Science: 04:23 – 05:27
• On-Air Puzzle Game: 05:27 – 13:35
• Puzzle Construction & Aha! Moments: 06:36 – 07:39
• Designing the Mini Crossword: 09:17 – 10:18
• Puzzle-Making Jargon: 11:04 – 11:42
• Live Player Calls: 11:45 – 13:35
• The Book 'Puzzlemania' & Evolution of NYT Games: 14:24 – 16:02
• Adapting Digital Games to Print: 17:21 – 18:12
• On the Hardness of Connections: 18:18 – 19:07
• Puzzles as Life Reprieve: 19:07 – 19:52

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Tone & Style

The tone is friendly, brainy, and enthusiastic—a blend of NPR-style accessibility and puzzle-lover’s in-jokes. The banter is good-natured, with a communal spirit that playfully celebrates the quirks of the puzzle world while welcoming newcomers.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode offers both a warm invitation into the world of puzzles and a deep dive for longtime fans. From the science of cognition to the nuanced craft of clue-writing, Alison and Joel cover the joy, the challenge, and the cultural cachet of puzzles in the New York Times and beyond. Whether you’re a crossword newbie or a “crosswordese” master, Puzzle Mania provides inspiration—and plenty to chew on the next time you pick up a pencil or fire up the app.

Transcript

[A]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Our next Broadway on the radio event is happening in just over a week. We are taking a trip to Hadestown. The beloved musical just brought in a totally new cast for all five roles. There's a new Hades, new Persephone, a new Hermes, a new Orpheus and Eurydice. And here's a sneak preview of Jack Wolf and Morgan Dudley in those roles.

[B]

Love it. Tell me if you can who's gonna buy the wedding bands? Times being what they are hard and getting harder all the time.

[A]

Lover, when I sing my song all the rivers will sing along and they're gonna break their banks for us and with their gold be generous all are flashing in the panel to fashion for your hand.

[C]

The.

[A]

We have all of the new cast members. Morgan Dudley, Kurt Elling, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Paolo Sat and Jack Wolfe here at WNYC studios in the green space for an epic hour of live performances. You can be there too. It's happening on Thursday, October 30th at noon. You can get tickets by going to wnyc.org hadestown again. Head to wnbc nyc.org Haitestown for more information and to get your tickets before they sell out.

[B]

We'll see you next Thursday, October 30th.

[A]

Now let's get this hour started with Puzzlemania. Welcome to Fitlola. I'm Aristotle Swan. For puzzlers out there, you may have figured out that was an anagram for the way I usually start the show because this isn't fit. Lola. It's all of it. And I'm Alison Stewart. Not Aristotle Swan, Although that is a good name for a public radio show host. Today we're talking about puzzles and the satisfaction that comes from wrestling an aha moment out of confusing clues. New York Times puzzle editor Joel I'm gonna try to say this.

[C]

Faliano nailed it.

[A]

Yes. Is here to talk about the new book puzzlemania. New York Times games, wordle connections, spelling bee minis and more. Joel, thanks for being in studio.

[C]

Yeah, it's great to be here.

[A]

So your parents got you involved in puzzles as a kid. Why do you think some kids get truly hooked on puzzles?

[C]

Yeah, I think it comes from coming from like a word loving family. So we played Scrabble Boggle, and there was just so much debate about is that a word? Oh, no. I can't believe you played that. What is that? Hawaiian goose. And it was a nene, for example. You know, things like that and you just, you pick up words over time coming from A word loving family.

[A]

That's already come up twice since you've been in this room. Nae nae. Hey, listeners, we are going to play a game on the air. We're going to play a sort of a crossword game. New York Times puzzle editor Joel Faglioni Fagliano Faliano has prepared some puzzles for you based on common language of crosswordes. We'll get to that in a minute. Words that always seem to pop up over and over in crosswords. If you want to play, give us a call. 212-433-969221. WNYC. You note in the introduction this idea of puzzling language crosswordies like you can always expect Yoko Ono or Brian Eno to pop up in a puzzle. How does the puzzling word benefit from having these kind of inside dynamics?

[C]

You know, it's interesting whether it benefits or not. I think in some ways it makes it sort of this exclusive club that it feels really good to be a part of. You know, it feels really good to. No. Elvis Presley's middle name is Aaron. A R O N. Is that useful knowledge in the rest of your life? No, not really. It's never going to come up. Maybe at a trivia night at a bar or something. But I think part of what's nice about puzzles is the intergenerational nature of them. So when somebody, you're solving puzzles with somebody and they know the same things you do, and you're able to both delight over being able to solve a clue, it's a great way to connect with another person.

[A]

You got your degree in linguistics and cognitive science. And I don't know if you know this.

[B]

I had a brain injury in 2024.

[A]

And part of my speech therapy is puzzles that my therapist gave us, word.

[B]

Puzzles and cognition puzzles, memory puzzles, sometimes.

[A]

Just a puzzle puzzle that's on the table. What's going on in terms of the.

[B]

Science of the brain and cognition when we do puzzles?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I would say it's far from my area of expertise because right after college I became a puzzle editor where we don't study those. I will say my uncle is a neuroscientist and he studies dementia. And one of the ways they treat dementia is with puzzles. And I think it has to do with recall. Puzzles are a way of testing your recall of things, you know, and also of your way of, you know, exploring new avenues in the brain, making new connections, new synapses. So if I can contribute in that to any way, I'm happy To otherwise, just trying to have people have a good time.

[B]

All right, we've got somebody on the line. Pat from White Plains is calling.

[A]

Pat, are you ready to play?

[D]

I think so, Allison. Thank you for taking the call.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

All right, Pat. So the answer to each of these questions is a familiar piece of crossword ease, something that appears in puzzles a lot. So this is four letters, and the clue is cookie in the shape of its first and last letters.

[B]

I got that.

[C]

So it's a four letter cookie. The first and last letters are the shape. If you'd like, I can give you the first letter.

[D]

Yes, please.

[C]

The first letter is. Okay.

[A]

Oreo.

[C]

Oreo is right.

[B]

Thank you so much for calling.

[A]

If you want to play our game.

[B]

With New York Times puzzle editor Joe Faliano, he has some puzzles prepared for you with crossword e's.

[A]

Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433.

[B]

WNYC. These are words that seem to pop.

[A]

Up over and over again in crosswords.

[B]

Let's see if you can get them as well. When you A crossword puzzle or any kind of puzzle, when you're coming up with clues, what kind of factors go into engineering that aha moment? Like, I got it. Aha.

[A]

I got Oreo.

[C]

Yeah. So one of the things you do as a puzzle creator is you really try not to make a puzzle just for you. You know, that's filled with references that you find funny and jokes that you find funny. That's a surefire way to make a bad puzzle. One of the things you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of the solver. So I'm constantly thinking about, have I crossed these two words fairly? Is it safe to assume that maybe someone won't be able to get the across answer, but they can get the down answer? And then you asked about clever clues. A lot of times, those are the ones. This is a little inside puzzle tip for everyone out there. If you're solving a crossword and you see a clue with a question mark at the end of it, it's going to be a bad pun. Beware. Strap in. There is a pun incoming. And so, you know, it's sort of the puzzle's labeled it for you, and you'll be able to solve it.

[A]

All right, Isabelle from Manhattan, Isabel, are you ready to play?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Okay, Isabel. So your clue is sea predator that can grow to roughly the size of a school bus. Four letters.

[D]

Orca.

[C]

Orca. She got it right away.

[A]

Way to go, Isabel. Jesse from Spring Lake New Jersey is ready to play. Hi, Jesse. Hi.

[D]

How are you, Allison? Doing good?

[A]

Doing well. Let's go, Joel.

[C]

Okay, Jesse, your clue. It's four letters again. Barry, whose name is 3/4 vowels?

[D]

Acai.

[C]

Acai is right. Acai is right.

[A]

Oh, you are playing with a public radio audience.

[B]

Yes, you are.

[A]

Let's talk to Tom from the East Village. Okay, Tom, are you feeling good? Are you feeling ready?

[D]

I don't know. I'm a little nervous, but let's go.

[C]

Okay, Tom, here we go. So this is a three. Three letters. Is your answer bird able to run faster than the fastest human? Three letter bird. It's appeared 587 times in New York Times Cross.

[D]

Any hints?

[C]

Tall, fast bird in three letters. Allison, do you. You can find. Picture it, I think starts with an.

[A]

E and an M and a U.

[C]

That's correct. It is emu. Emu is right.

[A]

So you're in charge of the mini crossword.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

All right, so what's harder and what's easier when you're trying to come up with a compact version of the crossword?

[C]

Yeah. So the mini crossroad was started in 2014 when we launched our games app. And the idea is basically that our normal crossword is incredibly hard. As many of you know, the Monday is the easiest, but then by Saturday, it's like the hardest puzzle in the world. And so we wanted to give some offerings that people could solve a little more quickly each day. My goal with the mini crossword is to broaden the audience of people who think crosswords are for them. I think a lot of people pick up crosswords, and they're smart people and they know lots of things, but there's this barrier of I'm not sure I know all the things that go in these puzzles. So despite the theme of our quiz today being crossroad E's, I try really hard with the minis to not include words that you only know if you do a bunch of puzzles. It's just filled with regular vocabulary, but still interesting, entertaining. Let's call it New York Times level clues. So that's the goal of the mini crossword.

[A]

We are speaking with Joel Faliano, a puzzle editor at the New York Times, creator of their mini crossword and editor of the new book of puzzles called Puzzlemania. We want to get you in on this conversation. Joel has prepared some puzzles for you based on the common language of crossword ease. Words that seem to pop up over and over again in crosswords. Give us a call to play at 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. As we get the folks line up again, let every industry and workplace has its own way of talking about the job. What are some puzzle making jargon that you use with your colleagues that we would not necessarily know what you were talking about?

[C]

Sure. Wow, there's so much of it. Well, we talk a lot about the grid and the fill. So the grid is the diagram you see with the crossword. And the fill is what we call all the words that cross. We also talk about corners. So in every big crossword, it's segmented by black squares. And we focus a lot on whether a corner, a section of the crossword is fair. You know, if you have too many names in one section or maybe a pile up of a lot of consonant heavy words where you're gonna really need to guess one or two of them. We talk a lot about making sure there are fair corners to a puzzle.

[B]

All right, are you ready for some more, folks?

[C]

Sure are.

[A]

All right, is Jesse there calling in from Montclair. Or Josie.

[D]

Yes, Josie and Joe.

[A]

Oh, Josie and Joe. Okay, Josie and Joe, are you ready?

[B]

Let's go.

[D]

We're so ready.

[C]

Okay, Josie and Joe, this is another four letter answer. And your clue is Olympics event with two accents in its name.

[D]

Is it Epee?

[C]

Epee. Epee is right. The first and third letters are accented. That's appeared 748 times in the New York Times crossword.

[A]

Thanks for calling.

[B]

Let's go to Emery in North Bergen. Emery, are you ready?

[D]

Yes, I'm so ready. This is my first time calling. Thank you for taking it.

[C]

Okay, Emery, this is a three letter answer. Musician Brian, who composed the Windows 95 startup music Eno. Brian Eno, who I think owes us some royalties for how many times we put his name in the puzzle.

[B]

Or you owe him one or the other.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Let's talk to Sophie in Brooklyn.

[A]

Sophie, do you have.

[B]

Are you ready for this?

[D]

Yes. Hi.

[C]

Okay, Sophie, this is a three letter answer. And I will say at the front, this is the most. The word that has appeared the most in the New York Times crossword of any word. And this is a sort of new way that we're cluing it now. All right, here's your clue. Reputation or red for Taylor Swift in three letters.

[D]

Reputation or red for Taylor Swift.

[A]

You can do it.

[D]

Alba. It's an Alba. Eps.

[C]

So she had a tour that was called the Blank Tour. And each of these is in.

[B]

Oh, Era.

[C]

An era. Era.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

There we go.

[B]

Beautiful. Thank you so much for, for calling in. We really appreciate it. Somebody wanted to ask you a question. Are you up for that?

[C]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

All right, let's go to Kesha on line seven. Hi, Kesha, thanks for calling, all of it. You had a question?

[D]

Hi, I just wanted to ask about the quartiles, the puzzles that. The little squares that you guys have on the app. No.

[C]

So say a little bit more about that puzzle.

[D]

Oh, it's so fun. They split the word up into so many pieces and you have to put the words back together. It's called quartiles and I've just been addicted so much lately.

[B]

Thanks for calling.

[C]

Thanks for the call. I'm not sure that's a New York Times game, but it sounds like a fun game. I know it's fun that I would like to play, so I'm going to Google it right after this.

[B]

Well, it's interesting she mentioned this game and we've all heard about Spelling Bee and wordle, the sort of newer to the New York Times, but there's sort of, there's. There was a sort of a coolness around playing games again. Can you walk us through the history of the New York Times puzzles and how different kinds of puzzles have brought in new audiences over time?

[C]

Sure. And so to bring it back to the book really quickly, like, that's what this book puzzle mania sort of celebrates is the old and the new, like, kind of like what made the New York Times games famous and classic and then kind of what's caused this renaissance of New York Times games in recent years. So within the book, we have acrostics, which are a classic puzzle type. They've run in the New York Times magazine for decades and decades, as well as games based around Wordle and Connections, which came out in 2021 and 2022 respectively. So I'll say the flagship puzzle of the New York Times is the crossword. We call it the big crossword now that we have the Mini, the big crossword. It's the big one. And we've got 20 original crosswords that are in this book too. But the Mini and our newer games, I think have broadened the audience of people who are interested in New York Times games. I mean, even coming on the subway over here, you can see people with their phones out playing the app.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

As a puzzle loving nerd, since I was a kid, it's just really thrilling to see puzzles become cool and mainstream and something people, you know, come up to me at a party and Talk about and that sort of thing.

[A]

How are you thinking about the structure of this book as you were putting it together?

[C]

So one thing that was really important to me, you know, if you go to a bookstore and go to the puzzle section and open most of the books, it's grids. It's a lot of grids, black and white grids, which is certainly some people's thing. It's my thing. But what I really wanted with this book was you can open it and just start playing. You know, there are lots of visual puzzles. There's trivia. There are pieces on the different puzzle makers who make up the New York Times team. Just something that's engaging for everybody. Of all solving skills.

[B]

There apparently is a section called Joel's Favorites.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Tell us a little bit more about that.

[C]

So I've made the mini crossword for the New York Times since 2014 every day. So that's like over 3500 minis.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

It's a lot for this book. I went back through them and I picked out my favorites. My favorite mini crosswords I've ever done, as well as the favorite clues I've ever written. They're all in the book. I'll say some of them at the time were a little too hard and weren't popular, but I liked them, and it's my book, and so they are in the book. They're the ones that sang the most to me.

[B]

I'm curious what kind of puzzle editing goes into adapting digital native puzzles formats into puzzles for the page.

[C]

Yeah. So people who are familiar with wordle might be saying, how is wordle in a book? You need the tiles to flip over. So the way we've adapted something like wordle for the book, the game is called wordle in one. And basically picture that moment when you're solving wordle and you're like, oh, there's only one possible solution left. Given these yellows and green tiles. We've got basically that on the page. So you have your green tiles and it can either be lyric is shown, and you know what the L and the I and the C are green. It's got to be logic, and you write that in. So that was the ways in which we thought about even something like connections. How do you take connections and make it engaging for print? We've done different sizes, different variants, new kind of meta puzzles. So there's a lot of spins on our favorite games.

[B]

All right, this one's coming from inside the house. It's from our control room.

[A]

They said, please ask him about how hard Connections is.

[B]

How hard is connections?

[C]

I was expecting this question. Yeah, so connections is hard. That's part of what makes it fun to me. We have a range of difficulty with our games. What's interesting about Connections is it all comes from one person's mind. Her name is Winna Lu. She lives here in New York City. I won't give her address out. That's a good thing. But she is just a brilliantly creative person and so sometimes the wavelength that she's operating is not the wavelength that other people are operating on in terms of the connection she's finding between words. But in the same spirit as our other games, she's ultimately just trying to make something that's, yes, hard, but ultimately delightfully solvable.

[B]

In this year of 2025, what do you get from puzzles that you really can't get anywhere else?

[C]

Oh, I would say just a reprieve. A reprieve is the word that comes to mind. To me, puzzle solving time is kind of this sacred break. I use puzzles as a way to kick start my day. I don't know how many other. Some people use it as a way to wind down, which I think is also a really nice thing before bed for me. One of the things I love to do is play the spelling bee. I don't know if you've heard the spelling bee. I have, indeed, with its hive of letters first thing in the morning. So it's just a way to warm my brain up. I don't go right to reading the news and it's just it gets me going for the day. I think puzzles can offer that. In this year of 2025, the name.

[A]

Of the book is Puzzlemania. I've been speaking to New York Times puzzle editor and mini crossword creator Joel Fogliano. Thanks for joining us.

[C]

Great to be here.

[E]

I'm Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7, our audience is turning to us to know about the really important stuff in their lives. Cancer, climate change, genetic engineering, childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of science and health news. For more sponsorship information, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.